Saturday, April 21, 2012

After Trayvon It's All Downhill for Gun Rights

Will Americans leery of a decade of gun rights expansions stand their ground over the Trayvon Martin case?

The Feb. 26 shooting of the unarmed teenager in Sanford, Fla., by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman,
and the initial police decision not to charge Mr. Zimmerman, sparked a
national debate about race and violence in American society.

But so far, Trayvon’s death is having the biggest impact on the national gun policy debate.

The
shooting, some say, may have set a potential high-water mark for gun
rights after a decade of legislative expansion, which included measures
like concealed carry and no-duty-to-retreat in public laws, and the
landmark Florida “Stand Your Ground” law that’s been cited in the
Trayvon Martin case.

I just notice that the gun grabbing chorus tunes up and sings whenever an incident grabs national attention. You're not unique in that. Many advocacy groups do the same. It's likely the fault of our news media that summon talking heads to increase the volume of any story.

If you anti-gun loonz had a principled bone in your body you wouldn't be flip-floppin like a fish on land.That evil SYG, Zimmerman, Martin, yada, yada, yada, but then when a black woman faces 20 years, you start changing you tune. Well, guess who else is changing their tune, the NAACP. http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2012-04-21/story/naacp-weighs-what-they-say-stand-your-ground-case-against-jacksonville-0

You folks are completely and totally, morally and intellectually bankrupt.the real orlin sellers

Yet in the wake of the Travon/Zimmerman incident, new Florida pro gun laws were passed.

HB463 & SB998 - Shall Issue Carry Licenses for Military & Vets:

Those who defend our country overseas should be able to defend themselves and their families at home. There have been too many incidences of violence against our troops who have just returned from overseas deployments and found themselves defenseless at home. Florida Carry authored legislation that will insure that our current troops and honorably discharged veterans can obtain a license to carry regardless of age or duty station. The bill will also require that fingerprint cards be accepted from military police and provost so that service members stationed overseas can complete their applications.

There are over 8,000 adult service members under the age of 21 living in the State of Florida. Countless more resident veterans and annual military visitors who will have their right the bear arms advanced by these bills.

This is a good first step toward full recognition of the right to bear arms by all law-abiding adults.

Florida Carry Authored and Strongly Supports These BillsPASSED HOUSE & SENATE UNANIMOUSLY Signed in to Law 4/13/2012

Somehow this doesn't look downhill to me at all. And this is just one example of a new law and there are several changes to current law that has just been passed as well that loosens restrictions as well. All of this just in Florida.

Wisconsin in just less than six months printed it 100,000th license. Texas took 16 years to get to just over 500,000. But it does look like Texas is experiencing a big surge in licenses this year. And new law changes in Texas will be visited next year such as "open carry" for example. Oklahoma is still fast expanding their laws. Louisiana is making big changes to its constitution concerning their second amendment that restrict government actions. DC is making it easier for people to be gun owners. Hawaii is making it easier for their people to obtain permits.

I mean the list just keep getting bigger. I cant see how the title of this article fits whats currently going on in this country.

While firerams ownership is down over 1980 the demographic shift that is causing it has not led to a loss in gun advocacy. The hunting and outdoor culture that followed the depression and WWII has faded as those individuals have aged and died. Their children do not take up hunting at the same rate their parents did. However, these outdoorsmen were not gun rights advocates as we know them. Many cared only about their hunting guns and the right to hunt. They were in the NRA but not part of the smaller but real gun rights movement.

As the GCA of 1968 and other anti-gun laws were passed, 2A advocacy formed due to threat. This movement has grown in leaps and bounds and has passed the more expansive gun laws such as the CCW movement which has been wildly successful by focusing on grass roots state activism rather than federal legislation.

CCW is the linchpin in the gun rights movements. Many people who otherwise dont care about guns see the utility in having the permit. Once they have the permit, taking it away, no matter how well intentioned is not going to be popular. You advocated an abstract concept of safety, but to do it you have to take an individuals concrete ability to protect themselves. It just isnt going to play and every day more and more people get permits. Women, minorities, democrats, republicans, housewives that are fairly liberal. Whether you agree with it or not it is empowerment and it is compelling.

Look how even the Democratic party has given up on CCW and meaningful handgun control, they know it is a looser. More democrats are A rated by the NRA today than Republicans were in 1984.

The Martin case will probably cause some examination of self-defense laws (though likely with few changes) but the old days are gone.1. You will not get handguns banned in the foreseeable future2. Concealed carry for private citizens in some form is here to stay.

If the democratic party publicly declared that these issues were off limits (that they would not touch either), and through in they would ensure there would be always be legal ways for civilians to own semi-automatic rifles...than we can start having conversations about keeping guns out of the wrong hands. But the 2A rights advocates will not put up with it till those issues are put to rest.

Make it a platform statement that the Democratic Party will never attempt to 1) Ban handguns or make their ownership so difficult or onerous that most simply choose not to due to inconvenience2) Eliminate CCW (or make it vulnerable to capricious officials who just randomly decide they dont want to issue permits to anyone or near anyone, ie "Shall Issue")3) Ban semi-automatic rifles or make it so hard to own that most people dont want the hassle.

There is a lot of distrust of any gun control measures because the pro-gun movement remembers when the gun control movement had such things as avowed goals.

Gun control laws HAVE to make an immediate and notable impact on the criminal use of firearms. This means that really the margin is in going after gun runners, the criminal misuse of guns and such things. Measures to keep guns from "unfit" people feels a lot like making it hard enough to have guns that people will not do it, which sounds like a step towards making gun ownership for self-defense impossible and reducing the gun ownership demographic to allow a ban or an effective ban.

Besides, why are you not trying to ban handguns or all guns? The reason the UK has low gun crime rates is there were almost no guns in the UK to begin with (less than 50K handguns before 1995) and then they effectively banned the rest (certainly made it impossible to use them for defense).

Americans want to have guns, both law abiding and criminals. You are not going to effect the criminal misuse of firearms as long as the guns are there. To get the effects you want they have to go away. That is not politically feasible in this country. So you are better off putting the weight of government behind educating its population on the responsible use of firearms. The NRA just to name one organization is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in teaching firearms safety. Aside from their own atrocious safety record, why not have the local police teach firearms safety, safe storage and the judicious use of deadly force to the citizenry? People who use firearms improperly should be prosecuted, obviously. We teach drivers ed in schools...if this is such a huge issue why not teach safe gun handling in schools? We teach sex ed, even, *gasp* contraception in public schools. Why not firearms safety?

We're talking about shootings or the lack of them. We're talking about the percentage of shootings in the population due to guns. That's what we're all talking about.

OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!, LITTLE MIKEYB IS RIGHT!!!!!!, 100% OF ALL SHOOTINGS ARE DUE TO THE GUNZ IT MUST STOP!!!!!!!Eleventy-0ne!11!!!!!!

How about this, publish the last set of Facebook photos of Travon Martin, publish his HS discipline record, restore his FB page and all the posts to him about being the man to go to for some plant.......

Gun-owners should be realistic and recognize that if they are put into a position where they must use their gun to defend themselves, they may very well be arrested themselves. After all, the police cannot just take your word for it when there is a dead body on the ground and you are standing over it with a 'smoking gun.'